As events play out around the globe, it seems that humanity is already well on its way to solving the global warming crisis.

Mogadishu, Iraq, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and so on ad infinitum (it would seem); Earth is embroiled in conflict the likes of which have never been witnessed. Granted, the omnipresence of the media has something to do with our increased awareness of local happenings worldwide. However, our awareness has been elevated throughout the last century or so. Gutters and ditches everywhere are rank with human blood and entrails.

I hold that the broadcast of the American lifestyle through television, internet, etc., to the dimmest corners of the globe has had a grotesque consequence to the human emotional condition. The American sense of entitlement has pollenated the globe.

This is the final run. The neighbors ALL found out how we’re living over here. The tasty bits of preferential trade thrown to the rest of the western world over the years do little to save us now. We had to make good on the freedom end…open borders, free trade, freedom of speech…all good things to be certain. As a result, members of the undeveloped world had a taste of nectar, or saw or heard about it through progressive layers of technology. How does one in a wreck of a home with a hungry family not become affected by this?

For the U.S. and others, this paradigm of openness and tolerance became the keys to the kingdom/s of the world. Free nations banded together to form bodies capable of enormous good, and stinging punishment….The U.N. being the foremost.

So much has been done in the name of protecting the free world (Free World?): covert actions on a planetary scale that topple dictators, and undermine movements that themselves espouse freedom, but were inconvenient to the flow of the Free World’s power and revenue. Whole wars were fought not just to save a certain people, but to secure the foothold of “freedom” in a region. Crushing sanctions ground the bones of people with the misfortune of living under despotic rulers.

That freedom is something that is given is a horribly flawed concept. The genesis of this free nation was fought for from within. Opportunity was a continent, not a concept. Land was free or nearly so. Natives that were in the way were annhilated with relative ease, having none of the perks of the industrial revolution on their side. Every important raw material for development and commerce hemmed in settlers on all sides. As much as the fighting, opportunity won the war.

Point is: where is the opportunity for all these far-flung peoples now? Have they got a snowball’s chance in hell of scrounging enough cash or weapons to actually SECURE their idea of freedom, and stabilize a nation in peace? And whose freedom or life will they destroy en route to an unlikely victory?

To me it seems that bands of humans worldwide have been infected with the sense that they are free to pursue their goals at whatever cost to others, in a competitive and capitalistic frenzy that parallels the functioning of our economy…GO FOR IT…may the greater man grow rich. How can they not have noticed the way the West, and the U.S. in particular has employed force and deceit to assuage its own fear of slowed growth and reduced prosperity. That’s the biggest disgrace of all, so much subversion of other nations’ natural growth, rarely (never since WWII) to protect our border, but instead our level of comfort here at the top.

People that once fought for a fair ruler now want to rule. The rule of law?…well then fight toward a position where you write, or strike down the laws. Fight, fight. Some societies/sects pivot on fighting in a just cause. Our own holds a great deal of this rhetoric to its breast.

IS THIS HUMAN NATURE? It would appear so. Most minorities become guilty of the same pecking orders and exclusivity as their former oppressors were once freed of their minority status. This once-minority of a nation of minorities has subscribed wholesale to the politics of exclusion, all the while touting inclusion.

AND SO, if the U.S. has been actively suppressing the growth of “unfree” nations because their government is corrupt (or inconvenient to the Free World), and we, as beneficiaries have enjoyed the spoils to varying degrees without the hindrance of ecologically sound policies that benefit all people… how could we expect anything but the same from our brothers and sisters in humanity?

I can almost feel the derision (justified) of a barefooted clansmen carrying a rifle full of sand on an empty stomach, fully aware of what we, over here, are “entitled” to as he marches toward the dim possibility of the first successful day of his life. Or the sneer of a statesmen now bombarded by environmental concern from the west just as his economy coughs and sputters to life. This is not just human nature. This is human nature on meth, fueled by bitterness and the decided suppression of the Haves of the world.

Global warming is a human problem/creation. Ironically, human nature is the cure. Will the havenot and juststartingtohave nations/bands/clans trade in their golden moment for the hypothetical of stable climate and fresh air? (It’ll only take 1000 years to rectify)

Will the developed world provide clean fuel technology at no cost?

No.

Will the developed world check its appetite for goods and services?

No?

How much coal will air conditioners burn this year?

?

Does China (eager for cars/fat with coal) care to check its stupendous growth?

?

Will people stop killing to advance what feels like freedom?

Based on what precedent?

At this rate, war or Global War/ming will have its way with us sooner than later, and the Earth will have all of forever to forget about us.

I need to say that I adore this planet, and try to feel for people too. I raise animals, grow a garden, live in bumeffin’ nowhere. The status of this nation has provided me opportunities I could never expect elsewhere. I do not want this to happen. There is every possibility that humanity is/could become a flash in the pan in terms of this planet’s lifespan, through a variety of means and ends.

People used to put great stock in dream and imagination. A lot of this went by the boards with the advent of the industrial revolution/urbania.

Talented dreamers were the pundits of the day,…divining the future, healing, networking with others, talking to god/s. I suppose they were the real magicians. Those with a knack for seeing what others could not were granted a status somewhere above the norm. I do not believe that people were crazy for believing in such talents.

I imagine those times, and those people, to be intuitive by nature. There wasn’t a great deal of information coming their way other than church-brokered fear and rumor. In other words, people needed to rely on their dreams, their emotions, their friends and so on. And just like the internet, there was little to protect them from the frauds and the carpetbaggers. The similarities are striking.

Industry and technology presented hope. A machine works or it doesn’t; you can see it before you. Old ways of divination were scorned in lieu of promising technologies that eliminated worry. Movable type meant you didn’t have to think of it/see it yourself, or accept it on faith from some “magician”…things written and reproduced carried a new authority. Machinery meant you could beat the weather rather than seek out a sage to circumvent it. Guns made us all gods, for better or worse

The internet might best be compared to the gun, in one sense. Now we (I) can espouse whatever as fact. The weak can prey on the strong. Anyone can pretend to be anything, and who would know better? It is the new equalizer, although it would be well to point out that the last equalizer spawned massive inequality.

Personally, I hope we tend toward introspection with this “new” thing. It is a monster, no doubt. While fantastic in every respect, it is potentially a global nightmare in progress. One way or another, the circle is nearly complete…what took us away from ourselves returns us to ourselves once more…the irony is inescapable.

The steady diet of war jargon that dominates not only mainstream but nearly all media subsequent to 9/11, and the numbing downspiral of despair of U.S.-occupied Iraq has infected the daily conversation of life inside the monster.

I mean not only Fox news, or Rush Limbaugh, or military media attaches. In fact, the bacteria of war has spread well beyond the confines of media outlets, relevent academia, political arenas, … left, right, middle, whatever.

I mean that I’m listening to someone discuss food distribution among the poor, or growing the economy, or advertising, or education (on NPR!), and suddenly I hear “boots on the ground”, or “at the end of the day”. In fact, those two cliche expressions have become so endemic to our (wartime) culture, that we seem to be pursued, even haunted by the atmosphere of battle in even the most mundane everyday chatter. What is more, people seem to enjoy launching these anecdotes at the slightest opportunity, no matter how inappropriate, or irrelevant in the context of the situation.

Do people not typically reside “on the ground”? Do we now refer to humans as footwear? Can’t we just say, “We need more teachers in the schools,” or do we ENJOY saying, “We just don’t have the BOOTS ON THE GROUND to fulfill educational requirements.”

In fact, even in the context of war, these terms are appalling. Families do not grieve the loss of boots.

I do not want to inflame anyone’s personal, political, or spiritual sensibilities. I actually believe that some things are worth fighting for, both on a personal and national level. The current climate is so fraught with dishonesty and spin that I feel we are all at a loss to comment rationally. (Though I will say that it’s pretty effin’ clear where we don’t belong.)

Point is, if we lose the personal battle…the battle to remain alive inside and out through a deluge of death and deceit…, if we lose our language of life to a flippant vernacular of death, then we have lost the future. Maybe this is how we “deal” with the scene in front of us, to some extent.

Maybe we should not deal with the devil.

Reject assimilated war expressions!

Talk smart!

That this is the monster’s belly is irrefutable…if not by direct purpose, then most certainly by virtue of world opinion. Our doom is to try and survive the obliteration of the language of life, and so, the living of life.